


Follow

by Cryellow



Category: Countdown to Countdown (Webcomic)
Genre: A NEW FANTASTIC POINT OF VIEW, A WHOLE NEW WORRRRRLD, Countdown to Countdown, CtC, M/M, Parallel Universe, This is basically just an au where the ctc kiddos are in an au of my making for my oc, this was for a zine and i have the link to that (free) zine so hmu, zine work finally released
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-06 23:40:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19073050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cryellow/pseuds/Cryellow
Summary: “Perhaps there are worlds like this one: twisted yet similar. Perhaps there is a world in which nothing goes wrong, and perhaps there is one where everything goes right, and maybe, just maybe, there is one right in between.”





	Follow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vel the creator of something much bigger than herself](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Vel+the+creator+of+something+much+bigger+than+herself).



> THERE'S GOING TO BE A LOT OF NOTES BECAUSE I HAVENT ACTUALLY POSTED HERE IN LIKE 80 YEARSSSS.   
> SO! Where to begin! I haven't actually wrote a fic or anything in a long as time before doing the Appreciation zine, so it was super nice to be able to get back to that.   
> "oh hey yellow hows your life been?" WELL THANK YOU FOR ASKING ITS BEEN WILD AF. I'm going to community college instead of university, I'm a manager at my job, I've got a girlfriend of almost 6 months (holy shiiiiit!!!) and I'm currently still living at my parents house. A lot, yeah, and the funniest part is you can trace my whole life history through the pages of my fanfics.   
> Now that the "about the author" section is done, I'd like to explain a little more. I've been dishonest. I've been WRITING, I just haven't been writing Fanfiction. I've been writing my own novel, of which has about 5 or so chapters so far, and it's been kind of slow going. Sometimes I find it easier to write, sometimes I find a million other things I can be doing instead of writing (like this lmaooo). If anyone is seriously interested about a futuristic-apocalyptic novel with a pansexual main character who has powers, hit me up.   
> About this particular piece: I wrote this fic about hmmmmm a minute after I heard news there would be a ctc zine free to the public. I went bananas and decided I'd write the fic so that the peeps in countdown to countdown go through the world I've put the main character of the novel through. I have a copy of the zine on standby at all times for anyone who thrives on more ctc content (like myself).   
> What else did I wanna say, hmmmmmmm.   
> Oh yeah so theres a bit I put in the zine that I really want to put on here too, and it's a message to CTC's creator, Vel.   
> "Vel, this is for you, your comic inspired me to write my own novel, and gave me the ground to meet my family. For that I will never forget. I know life can be rough, but know that you are loved, every day. This fic is based on my novel, so I hope you enjoy."  
> And with that I'll just let y'all dig right into this juicy pie.

“Perhaps there are worlds like this one: twisted yet similar. Perhaps there is a world in which nothing goes wrong, and perhaps there is one where everything goes right, and maybe, just maybe, there is one right in between.”

 

A thin man woke up on the floor. He knew this because underneath of him was hard and his limbs ached when he felt them. He also knew that he shouldn’t  _ be _ on the floor, but he couldn’t remember for the life of him why he would end up on the floor anyway. His long eyelashes opened up to look around him, and he lifted his head. He woke up in an abandoned building resembling an old fast food restaurant. He looked around and saw light piercing through the wood bars on the doors and windows. There was a large counter and a giant yellow M around everything, including the decaying menu above the counter. He woke up in the middle of the floor, right in front of the long counter and in front of these odd machines that looked technical, but were long since abandoned. He groaned and sat up properly, before taking a double take. There was a beefy looking man laying beside him on the floor. It was almost as if the two had been knocked unconscious and dragged here, or perhaps they were supposed to be somewhere else and ended up on the floor beside each other. 

The other man had pinkish hair that was cut a little long at the front, a broad looking chest, and bandages on hands that looked rather like a pianist’s hands. The thin man took a second to think- since that is the sort of thing humans did- and tried to remember as much as he possibly could. 

His name was Iris Black. He was a demiflora. That sounded right somehow in his own head. His name was Iris. 

Iris looked down at the other man and tried to place him. He’d seen him before, that was the aspect that Iris was the most sure about. He did not, however, remember his name, or why he would possibly be laying on the floor next to Iris. The other man had a bag beside him- two of them to be fact. One was black and looked like a regular backpack. The other was a blue messenger bag with a long strap. Instinctively, Iris reached for the black bag and looked inside.

There was a small black cell phone, a first aid kit, a piece of paper, a pencil, some unfolded clothes, pink lotion, a few candy pieces, and surprisingly, a breakfast recipe book. Odd. 

Iris looked over at the man laying down and nudged him on the shoulder. The man began to stur, groaning as he rose from the floor and opened his eyes. 

“Wha..?” He said, taking a look around. His eyes (which, to Iris’ surprise, were a soft pink like his hair) found Iris and stopped there. His head tilted a little and his brows furrowed in concentration. “Do I…. know you?” 

“I think so, but I can’t remember.” Iris replied, feeling his eyebrows going down in frustration. “Why are we here? Who are you?” 

“My name…” the other man took a second to think about the question and then nodded. “I’m Lillium White. And you’re… Iris Black.” 

A strange look ran across Lillium’s face, and a small smile played on his lips. Not that Iris was  _ looking _ at his lips! He just happened to see it! 

“So you definitely already know me,” Iris said it in a way that was sarcastic and brooding. He wondered if he did that a lot. “So where are we? Why are we here?” 

“You don’t know fast food places…” Lillium said quietly, staring off into space a moment. “Why do I know that?” 

“Hello…?” Iris said, waving a hand. “Earth to Mr.White?” 

“You can…” Lillium said slowly. “You can call me whatever you like.” 

For a moment he really took a look around and then seemed to shake everything off. He seemed determined, like he needed to be. It was obvious Iris wouldn’t know much, since he kept asking where they were, but Lillium, even if he didn’t know either, didn’t seem to show it. 

“Let’s go see, shall we?” He said, standing up, dusting himself off, and offering out a hand to Iris, who was still sitting up on the floor. 

“I think the blue one over there is your’s, Mr. Sunshine.” Iris pointed to the blue messenger bag and put the black one around his shoulders. For the first time he looked down at himself and noticed his clothing. A dark brown shirt with a brain and wings on it, a necklace which was tucked under his shirt, a jacket wrapped around his waist, black ripped jeans, and boots. For some reason the sight of so many dark colors comforted him. 

“Come on,” Lillium said, grabbing Iris’ hand and walking towards the door. It seemed like he had been about to say something else, but it was left unspoken.“Let’s figure out where we are-” 

“Your hand..” Iris said, remembering something. It was slight, like looking at a foggy lens but seeing that there’s something there. You just can’t tell what. 

“I’m sorry, is that too much? I shouldn’t have touched you without asking.” 

“No… it’s… a precautionary measure, isn’t it?” 

“Yes,” Lillium said, confused for a second. “I can let it go-” 

“Only when we’re safe.” Iris cut in, looking down at their hands joined together. 

“Okay then.” Lillium said, and he kept walking forward over to one of the doors which, thankfully, was shattered on the floor, leaving a gaping hole where a person could fit through. 

Iris and Lillium blinked as they walked outside, into the sunshine, and found that there was an almost untouched suburbia around them. This came as a surprise to Iris for a number of reasons, some of which he couldn’t begin to explain. Lillium, too, stopped in his tracks and looked around, surprised. 

“This isn’t right.”

“It’s… normal. There’s nothing… wrong here,” Iris said, walking up beside him and looking around. 

Without a moment's hesitation, Lillium immediately walked forward and kept walking. Iris, who’s hand was still intertwined with the other man, followed. 

“Do you hear that?” Lillium said, obviously shaken. 

“I don’t hear anything.” Iris commented, looking around at the empty buildings and quiet streets. “Where are we  _ going _ Lillium?” 

“The sun is lowering, and it’s going down over there,” Lillium pointed left of them. “I’m going North. The sun sets in the west.”

“Why did you ask about my hearing?” Iris said, worried. It was all odd, sure, but was it really that odd? Buildings and houses and simple suburbia? 

“There’s no sound,” Lillium said quietly, almost horrified. “No sound at all. It’s completely silent.” 

“Except for us,” supplied Iris. Lillium nodded a few times in front of him. 

“Except for us.” 

“What are we doing here? Do you remember anything?” Iris asked, tugging on Lillium’s hand. He stopped in his tracks, causing Lillium to follow. The man with the pink hair turned to face him, almost a feverish look on his face. 

“I have this feeling- this deep rooted feeling- that something is supposed to be here. That the buildings should be a wreck. That something should be destroyed: not fixed. I don’t know where we are but I know we aren’t in the ‘right’ place.” 

“What do you mean the ‘right place’? That’s really cryptic.” 

“Just… trust me.” 

Iris felt his face contort almost against his will into a look of disbelief. Trust him? He woke up in a weird food place, on the floor, next to this guy, who then expects him to  _ trust _ him? Yeah, no, nothing about this sounds right. Definitely not to Iris.

“I don’t trust anything.” 

“I’m not just anything, now am I?” Lillium says, almost a little flirty. Iris felt himself blush a little despite himself. 

“Fine. But you need to tell me where we’re going other than ‘North’. How do you know North is the way to go? Aren’t there other things-” 

And, almost on cue, several noises were heard. 

A scream. Sounded high pitched, and also like this person was in peril. 

A thud. Like something got hit very hard with another something. 

And footsteps. Loud, running footsteps. In the two boy’s direction. 

Without hesitation, Lillium put himself in front of Iris. It was almost sweet how fast he was to protect the other man, and Iris was completely overshadowed by Lillium’s strong build. He took a moment to gaze and Lillium’s back in wonder for a second before the footsteps came upon them.

Suddenly a girl was running, full speed and not looking, right between the two houses that they happened to be standing in. She had bright pink hair that was in a very poofy ponytail behind her, dark chocolate skin,  a bright yellow crop top that fit to her body, and a pair of dark blue skinny jeans. She was turned to look behind her after something, and she definitely did not see the two boys in the middle of the street. 

Iris knew she didn’t see them because she collided with them almost hilariously into a pile. Like dominoes, the girl landed on Lillium with a shout, who fell back on Iris with a “Hey!”, who fell onto the floor with a yelp. 

The girl stood up and looked beneath her at the two boys, and for a second her head tilted as if she was remembering something. 

“I- I know you,” she mumbled, absolutely forgetting anything was chasing her in the first place. Lillium shifted off of Iris and looked up at her in frustration before halting. A look passed on his face and then suddenly Iris realized he must share the sentiment. Iris took a good look at her up and down, and then felt a warm tug in his chest, like she was someone really dear to him. He stood up and brushed off his pants.

“I know you too,” Iris said, smiling. “You’re…a friend.” 

The girl looked over at him and smiled too, nodding her head. 

“Sure, leave me on the ground,” Lillium muttered silently. He stood up and took a long look at her too. Iris saw his shoulders relax a little. 

“You’re more than a friend, but I can’t remember why. We-” he motioned to Iris and himself, “seemed to have lost our memories. I can’t recall much-” 

“Neither can I,” the girl nodded. “I woke up a few blocks from here in this huge house-”

“What were you running from?” Iris asked, looking over her shoulder. 

Iris watched as her eyes opened wide and her face grew incredibly pale, and then watched as she sprinted forward, grabbing both of them by the shirt sleeves, and didn’t stop to look back. 

“Hey!” “Wha-!” Iris and Lillium shouted at the same time.

“DEAD THING! CAN’T EXPLAIN! RUN!” She shouted, letting them go. She kept running and didn’t look back, and Iris and Lillium followed her lead. 

Iris, however, realized he must have been a naturally curious person, because he turned back to look behind him, and that’s when he saw it. 

“It” was another- what looked like a human- with green skin and neon green eyes. It seemed to covered head to toe in these purple-ish weird looking flowers and was sprinting at them. 

“Glitch,” Iris mumbled, still running forward. 

“What did you call it?!” Lillium looked over at him with a strange look, like he was expecting that he misheard. 

“A Glitch!” Iris screamed back. He didn’t know why he wanted to call it that, but he did. 

Suddenly the girl pointed to a heavily wooded area over on their right. 

“There!” 

“Are you crazy! That’s like the perfect place to trip and die!” Iris said angrily. 

“It doesn’t like sunlight!” the girl replied, sprinting ahead. She moved like she was walking on air-

Iris blinked for a second because he swore she  _ was _ walking on air, as crazy as that seemed. He shook his head and kept running, following after the girl. Trees hit them all in the face, but suddenly they found a small heavily bushed area that had formed a sort of small cave. 

The three caught their breaths and sat down, trying to stifle the noise, lest the beast- person- whatever it was- found them.  

“Please-explain-” Iris said between breaths. After about a minute, they all had calmed down enough for a proper conversation. 

“My name is Begonia,” she said, wiping sweat off her forehead. “I lost my memory and I don’t remember anything. I feel like something is wrong about this place- terribly wrong. You called that thing a glitch- I’ve heard that name before, but something feels off about using it for that thing. It’s not the same.”

She looked over at them for a second and then made a decision. “You’re Lillium,” she said pointing to him, “And you’re Iris.” 

They nodded their heads and somehow that didn’t make Iris more at ease. 

“I feel like I’ve known you a long time,” Lillium said, shaking his head. “Where are we- what is this place?” 

“I don’t know any more than you do, except there are things after us.” 

“Did it just start chasing you?” Lillium asked.

“Once it saw me something triggered in it! It almost sounded like it was saying someth-” 

A noise was heard a few feet from their position, and Lillium pushed himself forward to put a hand onto her mouth to quiet her. They hunched down towards the floor more than they were previously, and silently waited. Iris felt his heartbeat in his ears growing louder and louder. 

Iris knew it was the thing chasing them from earlier because it was the only thing other than Begonia that he had seen around them so far today. It’s footsteps walked around their position, but that wasn’t the most chilling part of the whole ordeal. 

It spoke. 

Well, to be fair, it more like moaned. 

_ “Help me…”  _ It had a low tone that spoke of misery, an impossible groan of human suffering. Somehow the thing underneath was still human.  _ “I need… light. So much light..” _

Iris’ eyes grew wide. His whole body shivered in horror. This thing wasn’t a glitch. Glitches didn’t speak like that. They were…

They were zombies. Glitches were zombies that resembled technological warfare mixed with biological horrors. When Iris’ looked in the mirror he saw Glitch. This was no Glitch. It didn’t have the tone or the simple conversational appeal of a Glitch. No, this was something worse, in a way. 

Thankfully, the beast wandered away from their current position and deeper into the woods.

“It-It-” Begonia began. “Did you h-hear-?” 

“It spoke,” Lillium said numbly. “It talked.”

“It’s not a Glitch,” Iris said. “Glitches are zombies, they’re beasts from human death- they talk but they aren’t  _ this _ -” 

“We have to move,” Lillium interrupted. “Look we all know each other somehow. I say we all stick together. We have to find a safe zone. Maybe we can go back to the fast food joint?”

Iris nodded his head. Sounded like a good a plan as any. They had to stay away from that… thing. There was something else that tug at Iris’ memory. Something that didn’t make him feel right. 

“We have to watch out for humans,” Iris commented, lost in thought. “We can’t let any..”

He trailed off, not really knowing where the end of the sentence would have gone. 

“Spawncampers,” Lillium supplied. “Why do I know that…”

“We have to move,” Begonia interrupted, grabbing their hands and forcing herself through the trees ahead of them. “We can figure this all out when we aren’t being hunted for sport.”

~~~

They kept walking through the small forest space and out to the houses and the small collection of office buildings and shops that told the story of a busy life. It was tiresome to keep walking so much, but nonetheless they kept walking. Iris felt his mouth go terribly dry, and on instinct he reached into the black bag on his back. His hand gripped a water bottle (a little beat up looking, but overall still filled with clean water) and brought it to his lips. 

Here’s where things became complicated. Iris watched himself raise a full water bottle to his lips, but nothing went into his mouth. He did not feel any liquid pour onto his tongue. He felt air from the bottle, but the strangest part was that the water level decreased slowly on the bottle, as if he actually  _ had _ drank from it. 

“Wha….?” he said, looking at the bottle a second time to make sure he hadn’t imagined it. The three were still walking down a street lined with weirdly shaped houses towards the empty restaurant they had been to before. For the life of him, Iris swore they had been walking long enough to pass it. He didn’t remember any of the houses, since he and Lillium had been practically sprinting away from the boarded up building that they had woke up in, so that made him even the more confused. Were they going the right way?

“This isn’t right,” Iris said, stopping. Lillium and Begonia followed, looking at him. 

“Well we already know that,” Lillium commented dryly. “From the not-Glitches and all.”  

“No, I mean we’ve been walking with no real sense of direction down this road and we’ve been travelling longer than we had originally. I think we must have passed it,” Iris reasoned. The three of them took long looks around. Begonia seemed to be double-checking that there weren’t any… well, zombies, around, while Lillium seemed to be mentally tracing their path. 

“We’re 15 degrees East of Due South,” Lillium said, placing his hand to the sky. It was an odd sight, for sure. “We were running kind of fast, but even then we didn’t go that far-” 

Lillium paced around, looking at all the buildings. Iris was pretty sure he was trying to identify which ones he remembered passing before, and like Iris, seemed to find none. 

“This place was made like a labyrinth,” Iris commented, rubbing his head with one hand. “Was this intentional? I’m not… used to it.” 

Lillium nodded his head in agreement. “Home.. isn’t like this. When I think of home I think of broken down buildings and smoke, not… even streets and such.” 

“When I think of home,” Begonia said, almost in a trance. She glided further down the street, her back to them, “I think of a place hidden from real time. A place few travel-” 

Wait- _ glided _ -?! Iris blinked his eyes and they did not deceive him- he was right. He watched as Begonia quite literally floated down the street, her feet not touching the ground at all. She seemed not to notice, like this was as natural as breathing to her. 

“Begonia-?!” Lillium exclaimed, and Iris realized he saw it too. She turned, then, and cocked her head to the side. 

“W-what is it, Lillium?” 

“You’re feet!” Iris interjected, pointing. “Y-you’re floating!” 

Begonia looked down at the ground and then back up at Iris. “So?” 

“So?!” Iris said, blinking his eyes, “You’re floating off the ground and you don’t think that’s weird?”

“Your name is Iris Black, and his name is Lillium White,” she pointed out, cocking and eyebrow, “forgive me if I don’t think that this is too out of the ordinary for the type of situation we’re in.” 

“Demiflora,” Lillium spouted out, unprompted. “You’re a demiflora.”

“That sounds… right,” Begonia nodded and smiled a little, like the word felt like something clicking into place. 

“When I woke up, I that word came to my head,” Iris replied, dumbfounded. “I thought, ‘My name is Iris Black. I am a demiflora.’ Does that mean I can float too?” 

“No you pull things from drawings,” both Begonia and Lillium said together. 

“Woah,” Iris said, looking between them. The three of them looked at each other in stunned silence. 

“Then what do you do, Lillium?” Iris said, turning to him. Lillium shook his head and furrowed his brows. “I don’t like to talk about it. I don’t know why.” 

“So… we’re all demifloras,” Iris said, folding his arms. “You can float, and I can… pull things from drawings?What do we do with this information? Are we being hunted for this?” 

“How about we go to that restaurant,” Begonia said, determined. “We don’t have all the answers. Not yet, anyway.” 

Before they could talk any more about the current situation, Begonia rose in the air, floating above the houses just enough to see the tops of them, and then floated back down, gracefully, like a dancer. 

“We were on the wrong street. We’re two feet from it but we’re one street too far on the left.” 

Iris smacked his forehead with his hand and gave out a gruntled sigh. “Figures.” 

In no time at all, the three of them had walked up to the boarded up, dusty old restaurant and walked in. There were no seats except for the floor and the counters, so they all leaned on the counter.

There was an odd feeling in the air, like there was something they were waiting for, yet nothing was to be found. They wandered around the building for a second, trying to look for any type of sign or explanation as to how they woke up in this strange building. Begonia was looking around the bathrooms and she seemed rather uneasy, like she didn’t want to be in this particular building. Lillium was investigating the open floor space, examining a few marks on the floor where there once used to be (from what Iris could tell) seats. 

Iris, on the other hand, was drawn to the back room and the friers. They didn’t seem to take those when God abandoned this place. After a few minutes of searching and absent-minded praying, suddenly Iris saw a door. 

“Storage/Cleaning Closet,” Iris read aloud. “Hey guys, I think you should see this.” 

The other two came up behind him, Begonia putting a hand on her hip and looking softly at it. 

“Well, what is it?” Lillium asked. 

“We’ll find out,” Iris said, and he opened the door. 

And that’s when it all came flooding back to him, to them all, really. 

Iris tumbled backwards, sending the three of them (since the other two were behind him) straight onto the floor. Iris grabbed his head and panic riddled his body. 

“Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God-” he said, standing up and looking down at the other two. Begonia was on the floor, limp, almost as if she was extremely tired and didn’t feel like moving. Lillium, on the other hand, was staring wide-eyed at the ceiling. 

“The save file was corrupted-” Iris choked out, grabbing his head. “This isn’t our home- this isn’t our Oregon- this isn’t our  _ dimension _ -” 

“I’m… not supposed to be here,” Begonia said, patting herself down slowly. She seemed to come to terms with the fact she was out of the save point, her home for so, so long. 

“We- we need to figure out a way to get home-” Lillium began, but just as he started to say that, Begonia rose and backed away from the pair of them. 

“I’m not going back. I can’t go back. Staying there is a  _ nightmare _ dressed as a daydream! You can’t make me! I- I won’t do it!” And with that she left, stumbling out of the old broken down fast food restaurant and floating away. 

“Begonia!” Lillium shouted, getting up too. “We have to stick together! This isn’t our home!” 

“Lillium what happened? What-” 

“I don’t know, Iris but calm down, we’re going to fix this-” Lillium began, starting to walk away. 

“Lillium NO! Don’t you get it?! I did this! I put us here! I’m a Glitch! You have to have known that?! Every time I see myself in the mirror I see scratched out eyes and broken lines of code! I’m a Glitch! I touched the save point- I overwrote on my file when I went to look for you- Don’t you see? It’s me!” 

Lillium looked him deep in the eyes, and for a brief moment Iris wondered what would happen. Would Lillium leave him to rot? Would he hold him close, and tell him it’s okay? Would the three of them be doomed in this other world? 

“Lets go sit down. You need to calm down,” Lillium said, taking Iris’ hand and walked him to the center of the floor. He took of Iris’ bag and his own, and sat them both down. 

“It’s okay, Iris. It’s going to be alright.” 

Like a fading out movie, Lillium’s face and the world around Iris began to blacken. 

“Lillium? What-?” 

 

“Everything is going to be alright, I promise.” 

 

~~~

 

A thin man woke up on the floor. He knew this because underneath of him was hard and his limbs ached when he felt them. He also knew that he shouldn’t  _ be _ on the floor, but he couldn’t remember for the life of him why he would end up on the floor anyway. 

What the thin man didn’t know was that his name was Iris Black, and he was a demiflora with incredible power. What the thin man didn’t know was that he was doomed to an eternity of bad save files overwriting themself, a series of unending redo’s that would go on forever in a world that wasn’t his own. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you LOVED this work, go ahead and check out my others! You can also follow me on Tumblr (too-many-fandoms-girl) and follow my twitter @Cryellow98 where I'm more than willing to scream about ctc or any of the things I've written about. Before I say any more about how much I crave your feedback, I want to say a few words about the zine. IT was such a serious honor to be a part of it and to create something to appreciate someone so freaking amazing! Baegonia, who literally put together and made the zine that this fic was a part of, is so incredibly awesome that words cant express. (for those wondering, Vel already read this fic in the zine and Im BELATED to scream to the heavens that she really liked it!!!!!!)  
> That's about all I can say without bursting into tears, so:  
> Don't forget to kudos if you enjoyed, and sound off in the comments section about how gay you are for Begonia (BITCH ME TOO-) And I love you ALL so very much! Love, Cryellow <3


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